‘BAHUBALI’ GSLV MAKES INDIA SPACE SUPERPOWER

It is time for India to launch the Asian Space Agency, this is what Dr Nambi Narayanan, described as the father figure of the country’s heavy duty rocket development programme told The Pioneer on Monday after watching the proceedings at Satish Dhavan Space Centre at Sriharikota, (Andhra Pradesh) from where Team ISRO successfully launched the complex and complicated Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark 3 D1 (GSLV-Mark III), which was nicknamed the “fat boy” by Indian space scientists and “Bahubali” by the Telugu media. Weighing 640 tonnes, GSLV-Mark III is the heaviest ever rocket made by India till date.

Not only that, the space scientists successfully deployed GSAT-19, a next generation communication satellite weighing 3,136 kg, the heaviest ever communication satellite fabricated in India, into the Geo Stationary Orbit, 36,000 km away from the earth. The D1 in the GSLV-Mark 3 stands for the first developmental flight.

This means that India is not dependant on any other space agencies like the ESA (European Space Agency) to launch its heavy communication satellites. Till now, ISRO had to carry the heavy communication satellites built by it to the ESA’s launch pad at French Guyana paying exorbitant amount as fee for each launch.

With the successful launch of the GSLV-Mark 3 and deployment of the 3,136 kg communication satellite, India had proved to the outside world that it can launch heavy communication satellite on its own. “We have become a major space power and global player in launch business,” said Nambi Narayanan who developed the VIKAS engine in the 1990s which formed the core of Monday’s GSLV mission.

While the President said the nation is proud of ISRO’s achievement of successfully launching the indigenously- developed GSLV-Mk III and termed the event as “historic”, the Prime tweeted,” The GSLV – MKIII D1/GSAT-19 mission takes India closer to the next generation launch vehicle and satellite capability. The nation is proud.”

According to Kiran Kumar, chairman, ISRO, the country can launch heavy duty communication satellites from SDSC, India’s space port at Sriharikota on its own without any outside help. The GSLV-Mark 3 launch vehicle deployed by India on Monday is the heaviest ever rocket built by the country and powered by an indigenously developed cryogenic engine, one of the most complicated technologies in the world which uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to power the rockets.

It may be remembered that other space powers had tried their best to sabotage and subvert India’s efforts to develop the indigenous cryogenic engine. The ISRO spy case of 1995, which cost the careers of two eminent space scientists, Narayanan and Sasi Kumar, was the handiwork of persons who were under the payroll of various foreign agencies;

The successful launching of the GSLV-Mark 3 vehicle has proved to the global space community that India is capable of launching heavy communication satellites at much reduced rates which literally means that access to space for all has become a reality. India can also plan its future inter-planetary missions like Chandrayaan-2 or Mangalayaan 2, missions to moon and mars respectively, said Narayanan. He also said that it is time to seriously think of manned mission to space, the only segment in space science in which China has an advantage over India.

The highly advanced GSAT-19 will make internet speed in India as fast as that in any developed country. “This has been a major complaint for some time and we are going to address this issue with the Ku and Ka band transponders on board the GSAT-19 satellite,” said a senior ISRO scientist. “It is also the time to think seriously about our own Space Station up there in the skies, now that we have our own heavy duty launch vehicle,” said Narayanan who could be described as the most excited space scientist at the moment.